we have when bill clinton was president. significant cuts in defense and also significant human services can you tell us. >> katie, let me ask you, before you respond to what governor dean is saying. there is logic to what howard dean is saying. i don't happen to agree with it. but i know where he's coming from. katie, let me ask you this -- katie can't hear me. we'll wait for her to get back hooked in. howard, what about the notion that i'm posing tonight -- i've said this a few times -- republicans better be careful. they're not going down your road and the democrats aren't going down your road. you have middle class tax cuts for the democrats and it sometimes sounds to me as an old reagan conservative that the republicans better watch themselves because sometimes it sounds like they are kind of defending rich people. that's their whole mantra, just defending rich people. and i think that's not where they should be. >> i would agree. if i were politically advising the republicans, which i'm certainly not, i think tom colts was right from oklahoma. they ought to get out of the

clinton to w. bush lower tax rates frequently increased tax revenues, particularly at the upper end of the income stream. so here now to discuss this we have cnbc contributor keith boykin a former clinton white house aide and forbes media chairman steve forbes author of freedom manifesto, why free markets are moral and big government is not. love that. hey steve and keith. keith boykin i'll give you a little supply side. you'll hate this. this couples from the irs. the irs is going to use the bush cut, the dreaded bush tax cuts. the richest 1% paid $84 billion inflation adjusted dollars more between 2000 and 2007. that's a rise of 23%. in other words, their tax rates went down. and their tax revenues went up. now, isn't mr. obama making a mistake? >> well, the rich are paying more in taxes because the rich are disproportionately receiving most of the income in this country. the reality, larry, is that in my lifetime we've actually only raised income tax rates three times. once in 1969 to pay for the vietnam war. once in 1990 when george h. bush recanted his read my lips pledge and once in

secretary of state clinton, that if there was movement of any chemical weapons of mass destruction, movement -- now, as i listen to what you're saying, there hasn't been movement. it looks like they're getting ready where they are, but they haven't moved yet, so maybe they haven't violated the red line exactly. >> that's right, larry. they've got everything in place to do that. but what are the possibilities here? u.s. military officials say it would be very difficult to target certain areas. there are possibilities if they're going to load them on the planes. they could use cruise missiles to attack airstrips, for example. they can't blow up the weapons sites themselves, otherwise then the deadly gases could be spread among the public and kill thousands. the only other option according to some people that i've been talking to over the past couple of days is possibly take those cruise missiles and aim them not only at the airport strips, but at regime targets. even perhaps president assad himself. but so far, we haven't gotten there, the big question is can the u.s. react quickly e

into law by president clinton in 1996. it says if a person is legally married in a state, the federal government can't recognize those marriages. that's where you talked about federal benefits heterosexual couples get and same sex couples do not. the prop 8 thing is bigger. while potentially it's confined to the state of california only, the question it out there having given the right to gay marriage could the state then take it away through proposition 8 passed by a majority of the vote nurse 2008. having taken that case, the court could get to the bedrock issue. can any state refuse to let same sex couples get married under the federal constitution. it could potentially be narrow or very far. >> pete, as i understand it, let me ask you. this one of these things, maybe the driving one, is defense of marriage act was about paying the estate act. where one of the two people said she didn't have to pay the estate tax because a married couple wouldn't have to. >> reporter: this is a case from new york. a woman named edie windsor who married her partner in canada. the partner die